The charity status will be resolved in time, I am sure. I have been
involved in a number of educational charities, and it is just a matter
of patience.
On funding, there is plenty to do, let us not be desperate to dispose of
funds that we may well need later on. For example I am trying to get
more involved in the (possibly doomed) attempt to save Stamford Museum,
and one thing that has come to my mind is that mirroring the museum on
line would be a worthwhile effort. This could be done either by throwing
money at it, or by selectively working with a mixture of volunteer and
paid effort, and building a procedure that would allow the process to be
replicated elsewhere. I prefer the latter. One a project like this
blossoms, though, the costs multiply. The same would apply to, for
example, schools out-reach. If we pilot a programme in year one, say
one or two volunteers visiting a dozen schools each, with expenses of
maybe £100 per visit, then £2,400 will hardly dent the coffers. But
year two we might have twenty or thirty volunteers, and be running the
program at £36,000 pa.